Common sense breaks out in Test cricket, shock! Yes, surprising as it sounds, a thoroughly sensible piece of officiating went almost unnoticed at Lord’s on Sunday when England and West Indies played on all day under floodlights in the sort of gloom that used to have umpires diving for light metres and scurrying to the pavilion.
One of the biggest own goals registered by a sport that has scored a few has been the sight of players being taken off the field for bad light during Tests while floodlights have shone down. ‘Sorry,’ said the powers that be, ‘artificial has overtaken natural light.’ And off they would go, leaving cricket to suffer the sniggers of a disbelieving outside world.
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The result was a full day’s play on Sunday which would not have been possible before this enlightened piece of administration and England would probably not have had enough time to record a win that finally came an hour after lunch on the final day.
‘It was a prime example of why floodlights should be used in Test cricket,’ said Alastair Cook on Wednesday in Nottingham sunshine which should render the problem irrelevant at Trent Bridge in the second Test.
‘We talked about this in the dressing room and, even though there will be times it could work to our disadvantage, for the sake of the game we need to play on as much as possible.
‘We wouldn’t have got more than 30 or 40 overs in on Sunday if we hadn’t had the lights. And then we might not have won.’
MCC have been busy trying to develop a pink ball good enough to use in day-night Test cricket with mixed results, but if the players use Lord’s as an example of what can be done then there should not be any reason why a good old-fashioned red one could not do the job.
Shiv Chanderpaul is said to have expressed surprise about having to face Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad under artificial light but as Cook mused: ‘He didn’t seem to have too much trouble batting on Sunday.’
Now let’s hope the same degree of common sense is used for all Tests, starting with the battle of the top two when South Africa come to town later this summer.
Cook's generation game Tough test: Cook will be thoroughly examined this summerAlastair Cook is surely destined to break every English run-scoring record but there are plenty of curmudgeons who question whether he and his run-soaked colleagues would have been anywhere near as prolific had they played the game just 20 or 30 years earlier.
The unanswerable question is whether the technique of Cook could have survived the examination posed by the great West Indian fast bowlers or, in the era that followed, against the likes of Allan Donald, Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis. This summer, however, could go some way towards satisfying the cynics as Cook and England prepare to face a diet of proper pace all season.
Kemar Roach, Fidel Edwards and Shannon Gabriel put England through their paces at Lord’s and Tino Best, another of express pace, has joined West Indies in Nottingham as a replacement for the injured Gabriel.
The fastest of them all, Dale Steyn, will be here later this summer along with his speedy compatriot Morne Morkel. So, fast bowling is not exactly dead then?
‘I’ve never agreed with that argument, seeing as I’m the one who has to go out and face the new ball,’ said Cook at a Lord’s Taverners street coaching initiative in Nottingham.
‘It always seems to be people 90 or a hundred yards away saying that.
‘There are some fine bowlers around, none better than our lads who time and again have produced the goods. You never get an easy net session with them.’
No Gayle in NottinghamThose hoping that Chris Gayle was going to arrive at Trent Bridge on his white charger just in time to repel England’s swing kings in the second Test always appeared likely to be disappointed and there was no sign of the Twenty20 gun for hire on Wednesday as those who have got on without him - and his fellow West Indian absentees - went about their business.
No sign: Gayle is still in India with Royal Challengers BangaloreFar from being parachuted into the Test team it is not certain yet that Gayle will play in the one-day series. The bottom line is that the ‘new’ West Indies would rather get on without them.
Bumble's final wordWhen I started watching the bowlers who have become the leaders of the England attack, Jimmy Anderson was a raw talent with his head ducking all over the place while Stuart Broad was tall and gangly with a loose action and question marks over his fitness.
Now they have developed into absolute masters of their art at the peak of their powers and the simple reason for that is expert one-to-one coaching made possible by central contracts.
I can’t wait until South Africa get here so we will see who has the best attack in the world. It will be a great shootout between the two.
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